On 7th December 2015, Luxembourg, the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, unveiled its long-awaited Council Conclusions on personalized medicine. While these are recommendations and invitations to Member States to act in certain areas –and thereby carry little political weight-, they were welcomed by many as a significant step forward in pushing the agenda in this new field.

The main focus of the conclusions is rightly on patients and their access to innovative new treatments and, in a Europe with an ageing population of 500 million citizens, this should be ensured for the public good. The European Brain Council works towards an improved and more accessible treatment for patients and welcomes any initiative to empower those affected by brain related disorders.

On the occasion of the Council’s press conference, Luxembourg’s Health Minister, Lydia Mutsch, declared: “We all know that, nowadays, patients get more and more involved in their own treatment. Social media allow for access to all sorts of information. If we want to make access to targeted treatment easier, it is important that we enable patients to make informed choices.”

“Governmental authorities should have an active role to play because they give the guarantee that their information is based on objective and balanced data – which is not always the case when this information is provided by industry.”